


Your Basic Crossover Writing Guide

by MetaCat (OtherCat)



Category: Meta-Fandom - Fandom, Multi-Fandom
Genre: Bad Writing, Critique, Crossover, Good Writing, OtherCat rambles about writing, Writing, Writing Guide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 04:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20464772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/MetaCat
Summary: Techniques and methods for writing good crossovers, with some critique about what I think makes a good crossover.





	Your Basic Crossover Writing Guide

There are pretty much two basic types of fan fiction crossover. One is the type where you drop character a) into universe b) just to see what happens. (Example: Bumblebee from the Transformers Franchise into the StarGate franchise.) The other type of crossover is that two or more fan fiction universes are fused into one conglomerate universe. (Example: Bleach with Harry Potter.) This article is going to concern what makes for a good crossover, some theory behind combining story universes, and crossovers as a tool for getting people from one fandom into the other fandom.

I really love crossovers! I think I was thinking of crossovers since I was a kid, before I even thought of writing. The desire to create crossovers came from an interesting realization I had about the various different universes I was reading about: character decisions in text are based on the universe as created by the author(s). The story-universe in turn is affected by whatever world view is being put forth by the writer. Therefore, the internal logic of a book written by someone who believes people are basically good is going to be different from the internal logic of someone who has a negative view of people as being inherently terrible and selfish. From there, I’d wonder if person from universe a) would survive the environment of universe b). (These speculations often had some interesting results.)

(Example: Christopher Stasheff’s Warlock books with Wendi Pini’s Elfquest. The Stasheff books are technically “no sentient aliens” except for some shapeshifting telepathic fungus which SHOULD count as a sentient alien, but for some reason, they do not. Our Hero is an agent who goes out on missions to foster democracy, his enemies being communists, anarchists and totalitarians. (It is very much a Cold War Era science fiction series, written by a conservative.) Which is where he encounters telepathic humans, telepathic fungus and so on, on the Planet Grammarye. Elfquest is a science fantasy featuring aliens who decided to pretend to be spirits then got stranded on a planet of primitives after a mutiny started by one of their adjacent species (there were three species of alien, “elves,” “trolls,” and “preservers,” if you aren’t familiar with the fandom) a few thousand years before they actually would have landed. Our Heroes are the descendants of these aliens and most of the story is them learning about their ancestors, trying to survive on the planet and find others of their kind, with predictable culture clashes because these individual groups have developed their own ways of doing things.)

Using the previous example, using the first method of crossover is very simple. One of the Warlock books has Our Hero Rod Gallowglass (and family) end up in an alternate universe where magic is real. So the idea of transfers to other universes is already established in-universe. All we have to do is transfer him somehow to The World of Two Moons (Elfquest verse) and then watch him interact with whichever natives we inflict him on. Dropping a character from the Elfquest verse is a little harder, since while time travel (in one horrific instance) is possible, it’s less certain if travel _between universes_ is a thing. So you have to contrive one, using something from either universe that makes sense.

Fusion, the second method is harder in this particular example. On one hand we have a high tech interplanetary society with no sentient aliens. (Except for the goddamn telepathic shapeshifting fungus on Grammarye.) On the other hand we have one planet with stranded aliens and humans who at the most chronologically recent are at a more or less medieval stage. (We are not counting the Jink comic even though it is also far future in this equation.) So how do we fuse these two universes?

You could possibly do a “First Contact in Space,” though off the top of my head, I don’t know what relevant characters would be doing the contacting. I would instead suggest having Rod end up on the World of Two Moons instead of Grammarye. The humans on this planet are from a lost colony, and like the people of Grammarye chose to confine their technology to a very low level and their descendants forgot everything about having been a colony, probably deliberately. In this case you can have the elves, trolls and preservers as native to the planet. (Which would give Rod Gallowglass three kinds of a headache at the thought of three sentient species evolving on one planet, especially since there aren’t supposed to be any other sentient species besides human as far as he knows.)

Rod, depending on where and when you insert him into the story is going to have all kinds of stupid adventures as he tries to a) complete his mission b) figure out what the hell is going on c) do an actual first contact with actual aliens You can also have the elves trolls and preservers be a lost colony as well, and follow along with the Quest, with Rod coming along with. (Cold War Era bad guy agents optional.)

Here are some basic guidelines for writing a crossover of type a) or type b):

**Keep it simple!** After more than three fandoms I’ve noticed that the general quality of plot and characterization goes down, plus things get pretty confusing. I’m not saying it isn’t possible to do more than three fandoms, just that there’s too much going on, with too many streams being crossed, and I think a crossover should in some way showcase the fandoms being introduced in the crossover. (And the more fandoms mean the less showcasing.)

**Keep it balanced!** This is about power levels of the characters involved as much as the worldbuilding. Don’t make one universe-system inferior in all ways to the other universe-system. (Even if you are for some reason doing a crossover where you want to illustrate how inferior the other story-universe is for some reason.) This will tend to annoy at least half the audience reading the story. Also I feel this somewhat goes against what I feel should be the spirit of a good crossover, that is, I strongly feel that a crossover should in some way show enthusiasm and love for all fandoms involved. (Or at least the characters involved.) 

In addition, some story-universes are very high power and other story-universes are much more lower powered. You are going to need to raise the power level of one side, or lower the other. Be fair to the characters from both universes, and figure out where they are at as far as power level. (I guess you could think of it as a variation of whether Batman or Superman could beat the other up? Only In this case it’s more like who would win if they fought each other; Deadpool or Teal’c.)

**Make it Relatable!** Something that’s important is making sure that someone who isn’t familiar with the fandom your crossing from knows what the hell is going on. It’s important to introduce the new characters and the new situation without pulling an infodump or an “As you know Bob.” Give us some of that sweet, sweet outsider POV. How is James T. Kirk (original or new flavor) going to see Ed Elric? How is Ed Elric going to see Jack O’Neil? If you absolutely have to infodump because you’re pretty sure at least one of the fandoms will have not the single solitary clue of what you’re writing about, keep it light and very simple. If you think you have to, write notes explaining terminology you’re using. (I generally feel I have to, though I kind of like writing notes to begin with.) 

**Figure out what works!** I feel it’s possible to make just about any two story universes fit together or interact. The best way to get things to fit is to ask questions relevant to the worldbuilding of both story-universes. If Ed is in the StarGate universe, can he still do alchemy? What happens next if he can perform alchemy? If Rodney McKay gets dumped in the Fullmetal Alchemist universe, can he become an alchemist? What happens next, etcetera? How do I handle languages in cases where characters will not be speaking the same language? How can I combine these two story universes into one, and have it make sense to me and also the reader? 

**Cut it Out!** There are concepts and situations that you might have to remove in order to make them fit together. As an example, I wrote a Chrono Crusade fic that was essentially a fusion between the manga and the anime. There are vast, vast differences between the worldbuilding of the manga and the anime, and also differences in both plot and character characterization. (The manga is better by the way, but the plotbunny came from the last scene of the anime, and the manga is completely different, so.) Therefore the fic I was writing was essentially going off in a third direction, with underpinnings in both the anime and the manga. (As well as some ideas lifted from two works of science fiction.) So I had to change things and come up with meta for why things are happening the way they are, and provide reasoning behind certain things that happen in the anime so that they make sense in context of the story.

The most important part about writing crossovers is to have fun mashing characters and story-universes together into whatever story you want to tell. It’s important to keep a crossover simple, and make it readable for all fandoms involved. It’s also important to figure out how things work and why, as well as what you might need to remove or change so that the story makes sense. A good crossover is balanced, has great interaction between characters who would never otherwise meet and above all entertaining for the reader, even if they aren’t quite familiar with the other fandom(s).


End file.
